1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method and related apparatus for de-interlacing an interlaced image, and particularly relates to a method and related apparatus for de-interlacing an interlaced image utilizing at least two interpolation methods.
2. Description of the Prior Art
A television can display 60 continuous frames under the standard of NTSC. There are limitations for bandwidth transmission or storage capacitance when an image signal is transmitted via a TV station or stored to a storage media, and the display has limitations in scanning frequency as well. In order to avoid these limitations, interlaced scanning is utilized to take each frame of image signal apart to generate interlaced images, such that the amount of data decreases. Each frame of the interlaced image has only half of an original frame, however, so an image interpolation method is needed to generate missing pixels in each frame; that is, image de-interlacing is performed.
Bob mode is one of the popular image interpolation methods, which performs interpolation according to pixels at the same column (i.e, in the vertical direction) with the pixel to be interpolated. However, Bob mode is only suitable for an image with more dynamic components (that is, an image closer to a dynamic image), and flicker may occur if the Bob mode is utilized for images with more static components.
Ideally, images can be broken into parts that are identified as dynamic images or static images by utilizing motion detection, such that another image interpolation method can be utilized to process static images and the Bob mode can be utilized to process dynamic images. However, a motion detection method that is 100% correct does not exist, thus the above-mentioned method has disadvantages.
Therefore, a new method or apparatus is needed to solve above-mentioned problems.